


Only Shadows Hold You Up

by goldfinch



Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: M/M, Threats of Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 22:02:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4682966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldfinch/pseuds/goldfinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His words, they sound like mine. My voice, or some twisted echo of it, something he stole from me. What else has he stolen from me? He puts his hands against my face and I see that his skin is smooth and clean. Unfreckled. Without the latex he smells sort of like cucumbers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Shadows Hold You Up

I remember this. I don’t remember how long ago it was but the smell of the offices at Coney Island brings something back to me. Coming in here, cutting the chain on the front door. Dust and disuse. I bought popcorn for the popcorn machine, and paid the utilities—an automatic deduction from my account every month, lumped with my apartment’s on my bank statements, which is why I didn’t realize until just now. I cleaned the tables. Played a little Skeeball.

I was alone, then.

I’m not alone now.

Tyrell drops a hand on one of the tables, the one I usually work at. He walks his fingers down the edge of it, then turns around. His face has always had a weird, mask-like quality, as unreadable as his online presence. Or just as false, maybe. He looks thoughtful, but only because that’s the expression he wants me to see. Who knows what’s going on under it. “I always like to try to figure people out,” he says. “What drives them. The things I can use against them.”

His words. They sound like mine. My voice, or some twisted echo of it, something he stole from me. What else has he stolen from me? He puts his hands against my face and I see that his skin is smooth and clean. Unfreckled. Without the latex gloves he smells sort of like cucumbers.

“And for the longest time, I couldn’t figure you out,” he says. “I thought it was revenge that motivated you, but that… disappointed me. It was too small. Saving the world—now that makes sense.” 

He’s standing too close again. I can feel my body trying to lean away from him, but I don’t let it. It does that sometimes. Acts on its own, I mean. More than I realized, apparently, if I’ve been wandering the city in someone else’s skin. That realization still hasn’t sunk in yet, and I’m still sort of… I can feel it, back there in my head. It’s like insects, skittering against an invisible wall. Only some of them are getting through. All the things I’ve done, the things I don’t remember. It’s much easier to focus on Tyrol’s hand on my face, on his mouth. He’s talking again. Listen.

“I have,” he says, “a similar goal in mind. The flip-side of yours, if you will, though in the end I think we’re really after the same thing. The only difference is semantics.”

The fluorescents cast shadows down his face and his eyes are very dark. They were blue, before. His hair looks darker too, but I think that’s the lights again, not me seeing things that aren’t there. My body still feels weird from everything that’s happened today. I thought Mr. Robot—Dad—was my shadow, and in a sense he was. Something my mind created to do what the conscious me didn’t or couldn’t want to. Krista would be really interested in that. Really though, it’s Tyrell. It’s been him ever since that day in the office. His hands are still on my face and I can’t help thinking: did he know me then? Is that why he stopped to talk? Had I already forgotten him?

“I was fired today, you know.” He pauses, then laughs. “Well, you might, really, already know. You hacked me once already. But that woman I killed, she—“ his control falters; his hands against my face spasm and then relax, slip down. My pulse is jumping and he has one thumb over it. “They suspect me. I don’t know how I’m going to get out of it.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t.”

“I have to,” he says. “I have a family. I have—goals. But what I’m trying to say is, what you should take away from this conversation is: we’re on the same side, now, okay? I don’t _care_ about E Corp anymore. I don’t _care_ about the company, about being CTO, about Sharon _fucking_ Knowles, do you understand?” He’s still holding onto me. I don’t know if he’s doing it because he knows it makes me uncomfortable or if he’s trying to drive home some sort of point. “You want to save the world? I want to destroy it.”

I blink at him. It takes about a year. “Why are you telling me this?”

“You said it was just you, right? You need help. And I know computers, obviously. I worked under Terry Colby—“

“I hope you mean that figuratively. Because I really don’t want to know the—“

“Shut up.”

When he came into my apartment, he’d been twitchy. Nervous. I think he thought he was being followed, or was afraid he might be. That’s gone now. He’s not nervous anymore, but he’s still falling apart. Which is nice. It’s good to know not everyone handles killing someone the way Vera did. It’s good to know Tyrell is… human. Plus, Evil Corp fired him; that’s two points in his favor. Even if they did fire him for murder.

“Why did you kill her?” I ask. I watch his mouth open. I watch him swallow.

“Because I wanted to. Because I wanted to make Scott Knowles suffer. You said CTO would be mine, once you got Terry out of the way, but it wasn’t.”

Fuck. I said that? What else is there? What else does he know? Darlene said she was there since the beginning but he, Tyrell, he—

His hand tightens.

“I never told you to kill anyone,” I say, listening to the way my words sound when I have to force them out past his fingers. “In fact, if you had asked, I’m pretty fucking sure I would have said I didn’t want anyone dead.”

“I did what I had to,” he says. Hisses, really. “And now I’m telling you to do what _you_ have to.”

He’s standing too close, and my leg still hurts; he wouldn’t slow down for me at all on the way here. All of a sudden I feely woozy. “Yeah. Fine.” Cucumbers and latex. Popcorn and dust. “If you want Evil Corp destroyed, I mean, that’s where this is going anyway. You want to help? Okay. Sure. Just. Let go of me please.”

He does—slowly, one finger at a time, like he’s peeling himself from me. “Good,” he says. “That’s good.” He takes a step back, nodding. He drags a hand over his mouth, and then his eyes flick up again. Meeting mine. He’s moving, and there’s no time to get out of the way, and nowhere to go, anyway, and then he’s in my space again, only closer. It’s a hard kiss, but there’s the softness of relief in it too, and years of wanting—even if what he wanted wasn’t always me.

It doesn’t last long.

He wipes his mouth again after he’s done, and I feel my throat. It isn’t sore. I don’t think it'll bruise.

Am I... disappointed? Jesus. I am.


End file.
